


not even the stars or the moon can shine as bright as me standing next to you

by MatildaSwan



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternative Universe - Hecate Never Stood Pippa Up at the Broom Skiing Display, F/F, First Kiss, Halloween Themed Fic, Midnight Picnics Under the Stars, Rainbow Pumpkins, Unintended Revealing of Feelings Through Magical Means
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 09:45:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12578988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MatildaSwan/pseuds/MatildaSwan
Summary: It is All Hallows' Eve, Pippa's favourite time of year, and her joy is so contagious that even Hecate cannot contain her own delighted. But what happens when the feelings Hecate has been holding back, pushing away, about her best friend refuse to stay hidden, and instead decided to show themselves to the world, burning bright under a star-bright sky?





	not even the stars or the moon can shine as bright as me standing next to you

**Author's Note:**

> CW: a few references to masturation+sexual imagery, an aside to school year bullying, alcohol consumption
> 
> Notes: it's like half, maybe one glass of mulled wine. Both Pippa and Hecate are 18, Hecate's birthday is (non-canonically) the last week of October bc our gal is def a Scorpio. They're in their final year and about to finish school, more or less (I get confused about school years that don't start at the beginning of the actual year/huge holidays in the middle of the school year). 
> 
> Also, title inso from Kesha's 'Hymn' and Kelly is a babe for letting me steal her school name. Also also, I headcanon Hecate started doing her fancy nails once she left school bc they reminded her of Pippa and she missed her. 
> 
> Lastly, Happy Halloween!

Samhain was an austere event, Hecate remembers of her childhood, much like her birthday a few days before. Celebratory, of course, marking the end of one half of the year and movement into the next, but solemn and serious, nonetheless. As every Hardbroom know all witching traditions should be.

It’s not until her first year at the Sanderson School for Extraordinary Witches that Hecate learns not all celebrations must be marked by solemnity, and seriousness need not deny joy. It’s not till her first All Hallows' Eve by Pippa Pentangle’s side that she learns things can be enjoyed, as well as venerated, at the same time, and that Halloween is perhaps the most precious time of all in which to balance delight and reverence in equal measures.

She warms to the fact, in the years that follow, in no small part due to Pippa herself and the high-pitched squeak she makes whenever she is truly delighted, the one that inflects Hecate with contagious joy whenever she hears it; but not enough to melt the solid core at the heart of her which remains convinced their tradition and customs warrants solemn respect.

Though for all Hecate holds All Hallows’ Eve in the highest regards and would, if she were able, spend the night giving her respects to the dead and passing and what is to come in the privacy of her own room with only Morgana to keep her company, she knows there’s no denying Pippa Pentangle when she’s excitable. Just as she knows that the one night of the year for which she is most enraptured is this very evening (though she suspects a part of Pippa's interest in this year's Halloween is it marks a justified extension of Hecate's 18th birthday that is now actually a whole week), and hell or high water could come before Pippa would ever let Hecate hide away in her room on such a momentous occasion.

And they’ve both been selected to perform the Lighting Ceremony at this evening’s festival. That put a crimp in any plans Hecate might have concocted to duck out of the evening long ago. 

So, she resigns herself to an evening spent beside a delighted Pippa, smiling and laughing and making Hecate’s skin itch and her stomach flutter all the while, before making a spectacle of herself in front of the whole school at the behest of her Headmistress. 

That being said, she still finds reasons to drag her feet getting ready: she really didn’t need to make that extra trip from the library to her room.

‘Come on, Hiccup!’ Pippa raps hard on the door, voice frantic with excitement, and Hecate feels her nerves fizz.

She can hear Pippa’s feet tapping on the stone and knows she’s being as patient as she can, know she’s fighting back the urge to burst through the door like she might have done any other night (would certainly have done every night until recently, when Hecate went to painstaking lengths to explain—without going into explicit detail— why Pippa couldn’t just burst into her room whenever she likes, the day after she’d done just that to find Hecate in the middle of a mid-afternoon nap, and they’d narrowly avoided what would have inevitably been the most excruciating, embarrassing conversation of their friendship), but does not because Pippa knows rushing things tonight, of all nights, is not going to make Hecate move any faster. 

Hecate puts the last of her books away; pulls on her shawl with a smile, pulls her scarf off its hook, pulls the door open to greet her best friend. 

‘Trust you to take ages the one time I want to get there early,’ Pippa scolds, grinning nonetheless, leaning against the wall on the other side of the corridor, clad in pale pink wool from collarbone to hip, draped in thick, bright rose silk from waist to toe and a matching hat upon her head and, surprisingly, a bare neck. She pushes off the wall and whines, ‘I could have gone back for my scarf.’

Hecate sniffs, shuts the door, biting back a retort: that it had been Pippa’s idea to meet here and walk down together, that they could have arrived separately, that she could have given Hecate a few more minutes to collect herself before having to face the onslaught of emotions seeing Pippa at her happiest brought on and always so intently it made Hecate’s head spin till she’s confused and dizzy and doesn’t know what to do with herself. 

‘No matter.’ Pippa flaps her hand before slipping it into Hecate’s and pulling her up the hall. ‘Come on, we’ll be late!’

Hecate bites her lip, plants her feet, reclaims her hand. Pippa turns, glares, blinks as Hecate lops her scarf around Pippa’s neck. She steps back and flicks her collar up to cover her neck, pulling her shawl tighter around her shoulders despite the warm rush she feels as Pippa slowly wraps the scarf around her neck.

‘Thank you,’ Pippa whispers, fingers resting on the soft wool hanging over her chest, before looking up at Hecate with shining eyes, smiling small and so very bright. Hecate smiles back, feels something bubble up her throat, and clamps it back down. Clears her throat as Pippa blinks, stops staring at Hecate, turns away and races towards the stairs.

‘Come on, slow poke!’ she calls over her shoulders. ‘They can’t start without us.’

The thought of having that much power, that much responsibility, to have the whole of such an important night resting on her shoulders hits her hard to rest heavy on her shoulders. She has half a mind to turn tail and retreat to her room, now terrified of what ought to be a straightforward presentation of her own powers, which have yet to ever truly fail her, and Pippa’s, which she has as much faith in, and perhaps even more, that her own. 

But she can’t let Pippa down like that, the way she almost had at the beginning of the year with the broomstick display (she’d had every intention of standing Pippa up, letting her fall heavy now to lessen the hurt later, before Pippa realised how Hecate felt and started hating her—pitying her—for being foolish enough to fall for a friend so far out of her own league. It’s what she’d planned to do, what she’d been told she ought to do, until Pippa had taken an unscheduled study break the day before the demonstration and sought Hecate out in the library.

She’s found her there, not studying as she’s assumed, but rather cornered by a handful of witches Pippa had once called friends. She heard them saying it was sad, pathetic, _disgusting_ , how Hecate clung to Pippa’s elbow, that the brightest witch of the year was clearly only friends with the dullest out of pity, that Hecate ought to leave well enough alone so Pippa could be with her true friends.Pippa had turned red as she pushed them aside to stand in front of Hecate, practically spitting at Winna and Alice as she called them all silly, spiteful, _pathetic_ little witches to their faces—repeated it in full view of the school the next morning after the competition itself—and threatened to turn them all into toads if they bothered either of them ever again, before leaving arm in elbow with Hecate with her head high and her best friend by her side), because Pippa would never speak to her again if she did. 

And not matter the cost—not the itch beneath her skin or her racing heart or her fitful, taunting dreams—Pippa’s friendship means more to Hecate than almost anything else in the world. And while she still can’t quite believe why a witch as pretty and popular as Pippa would want to be friends with a dry, dull, austere Hardbroom in the first place, let alone stay her friend for all these years, she knows that she truly is Pippa’s best friend, just as Pippa is hers, and she won’t have it any other way. 

So she follows Pippa down the stairs, eyes falling to the curls cascading down her back to sit between her shoulder blades, despite her intent to look at her own hand on the rail as it slide down the banister. She lets herself look, unobserved, just for now, at the way Pippa’s hair gleams golden in the candle light, bouncing with each step, and knows that Pippa is beaming just as bright with anticipation for tonight for all she cannot actually see her face. 

They pass a cluster of turnips and squash cradled in the doorway, each one engraved with faces and smiling out into the world unseen, on their way out of the side entrances. They walk side by side while following the line of pumpkins dotted along the footpath, knowing each one is prepared to dance on their command. Hecate smirks to herself, and know Pippa is smiling too. 

They arrive a fraction earlier than right on time, and take their places in the first row of students, along with the other, younger, girls representing their respective years in varying parts of the festivities. The proceedings move quickly, make quicker by the smile on Pippa face that just won’t quit: the one Hecate feel reaching out to make her own lip curls whenever she catches Pippa out of the corner of her eye. 

The final item of the night is called and they both rise, smooth out their skirts, and take their places on the podium. The staff and students move to get the better view of the sky and they begin chanting. The bewitched heart of each totem begin to burn bright, their bases rising from the ground, as they begin their ascent into the sky. 

They charm a pattern, lights moving gracefully in the sky, and she notices Pippa’s hands in her peripheries. She can’t help watching Pippa twirl her fingers: elegant, confident, her nails long and pointed and orange, for the moment, instead of the pink normally adorning her fingertips. 

Hecate forces herself to look away, but just ends up looking at her own fingers, nails short and dull and cuticles bitten and fraying. She ties to convince hers it’s envy she feels, that she should like her own to look the same as Pippa’s, but knows it’s really lust behind the thought, wondering what those fingers might feel like on her instead of her own. 

Her concentration falters for a moment, their joined pattern falling slightly in the sky, and she curses herself for being so foolish. She centres herself, ignoring Pippa’s worried glance, closing her eyes and breathing deep, focusing her thoughts on pushing, gifting, the offerings back out into the night.   

But Pippa’s smiling face appears behind her eyes—her sparking eyes, her beautiful mouth, the crinkle of her button nose whenever she laughs that ridiculous, delightful laugh, which always makes Hecate’s heart sing whenever she is the cause—and Hecate is helpless to stop the feeling blooming inside her chest. She lets it unfurl instead of fighting it—she’s hasn’t the focus to do both at once—and she feels it funnelling into the spell for the whole world to see. She keeps her eyes shut, praying she hasn’t ruined everything by letting her magic slip outside of her control, that Pippa might forgive her for whatever it is she’s _actually_ done, if she can just get through this.

She hears a far off gasp, far too loud to be singular or even a few solitary souls, and a small sigh, close and at hand, and then awe-filled silence; she opens her eyes to see the sky full of brightly lit pumpkins, just as it should be, shining in all the colours of the rainbow, tints light and shades striking, burning in hues of the whole spectrum.

She feels her mouth fall open, eyes wide and her heart fluttering, as she stares at what might just be the most beautiful sight she’s ever seen, will ever make, with Pippa by her side and by both of them together. 

She’s still too stunned to speak as Pippa ushers her off the stage and over to the Headmistress beckoning them close. 

‘Not what I was expecting, you two,’ she says thoughtfully, ‘I’m surprised Pippa convinced you to deviate from tradition, Hecate, I hadn’t taken you for the type. But it was a very nice twist.’ She pauses to look up at the rainbow now dispersing across the stars and smiles proudly. ‘I’m sure our girls will have a hard time beating this in years to come.’

Hecate can’t help the flush of pride, the unexpected delight, in making something new and exceptional, as the Headmistress bid them a good All Hallows’ evening and leaves them be.

Hecate turns to find Pippa, not smiling as she’d expected, but looking down at the ground and scuffing the toe of her shoes against the grass.

‘Pipsqueak?’ she asks, suddenly worried she might have angered Pippa, for all the surprise seems to have appeared intentional to everyone except themselves. 

Pippa snaps her head up, blinks a few beats rapidly, and beams as if everything is normal. 

She reaches out to take Hecate’s hand and squeeze her fingers. Hecate can’t help follows the gentle tug: shifts her hand, tangles their fingers, and lets herself be led, away from the assembly and the feast waiting for them inside.

They walk, wordlessly, to the quiet of the garden’s edge and the row of trees that mark its boundary. Pippa lets go of her hand, and Hecate feels herself reach out to catch her again, before she catches herself and keeps her hands to herself.

Pippa snaps her fingers. A picnic blanket appears before them with a basket brimming with fruits and two goblet of mulled wine in the middle. 

‘I don’t know about you, but I’m famished,’ Pippa says, exceedingly cheery, as she sitting down gracefully. Hecate stares, brow furrowed with confusion, and stays standing; Pippa doesn’t notice, too busy helping herself to a grape. ‘Come on, sit down!’ she urges a few moments later, finally noticing Hecate still refuses to sit.

Hecate blinks at her, lips pulled tight in an unspoken question: What’s wrong with the feast inside?

‘I…I don’t feel like much company, tonight,’ Pippa mumbles, and Hecate feels more confused than ever. Normally she’s the one begging out of social situations for peace and quiet. ‘Except for you.’ Pippa finally looks up, big brown eyes begging Hecate. ‘Please join me?’  

Hecate sinks to her knees in front of Pippa and makes herself comfortable on the warm tartan rug. 

She sips at the wine first, feels it warm her throat before tingling through her whole body, steaming in the cool night air. She sets about snacking—grapes, apricots, a fig, some dragon fruit—as they sit in companionable silence. 

She catches Pippa glancing at her, from time to time, eyes smiling over the top of her own goblet; finds herself smiling back, for all she can’t help thinking there’s something she’s missing, a punchline to a joke she has yet to hear but wonders if she will soon. Hecate does her best to put it from her mind, and just enjoy the midnight feast with her best friend. 

She sips at the last of her wine, her fingers itching and her lips tingling, and bites into an apple. The juice is sweet on her tongue, gathers at the corners of her mouth, but turns sour the second Pippa blurts out,‘I have something to tell you.’ 

She knew it was too good to last. 

Hecate swallows her mouthful and carefully looks up at Pippa. Finds her biting at her bottom lip, staring at her fingertips playing with the edge of the blanket, and feels herself do the same. She worries her lip with her stomach in knots; they only tighten when Pippa continues, ‘I…I felt, how you feel, during the spell.’

Hecate’s heart thumps so loud it vaults half-way up her throat. She always knew this day would come. This is when Pippa says doesn’t feel the same, doesn’t want her, says she’s disgusted and doesn’t even want to be friends. This is when everything ends. 

She can see Pippa’s mouth moving but she can’t hear her past the rushing in her ears, the churning of her gut. She scrambles to her feet to run away from the ugly words she knows are falling from Pippa’s pretty mouth, the ones she just can’t bear to hear. 

She only makes it two steps before Pippa materialises in front of her.

‘Hiccup!’ she yells, tears in her eyes. ‘Stop! _Please,_ ’ she begs, hands on Hecate’s elbows and holding tight. ‘Why are you running?’ 

Hecate shakes her head; a tear falls hot and sticky down her own cheek, then another and another. 

‘I thought—but you,’ Pippa stammers, voice thick, letting go of Hecate to wring her hands in front of her. ‘I thought you wanted me too?’ 

Hecate snaps her head up, blinking confused. ‘Too?’ her panicked, racing mind manages to latch on to. ‘You, want me, too?’

‘Yes, of course I do! Hiccup, I—’ Pippa breaks off with a huff. Hecate sniffs. ‘What do you think I was just saying?’

‘I, I don’t know…’ Hecate trails off, wiping at her cheeks, trying to process: _Pippa said she wanted her, Pippa says she wants you too!_ ‘I wasn’t really listening.’

Pippa rolls her eyes with a snort. Hecate smiles, small and wet, and feels something inside her shift to let her speak.

‘It’s just…I, I never thought you’d feel that way, about me,’ she admits, eyes wide with disbelief that Pippa’s face in front of her, shining the bright and hopeful and _relieved_ , goes a lot way to disproving. ‘I never thought you’d feel the same.’

‘Oh, _Hiccup._ ’ she breaths, stepping closer, her hands falling to Hecate’s hips. ‘I do, I have done, for _so_ long.’ Her tiny, euphoric, nervous giggle makes Hecate’s heart ache. ‘Let me show you?’

Hecate nods, eyes wide and terrified and too scared to blink in case she misses a moment of Pippa’s face, wonderment and anticipation radiant in the dark, moving close towards hers. She wants this so much she can barely move. She lets herself be walked backwards, guided by the hands on her hips, trusting Pippa to move her safely. 

Her back hits a tree trunk and she lets out a gentle ‘ooph’; her mouth goes dry as Pippa presses close, a shiver run up her spine as her nails scrape gently at the nape of her neck, a moan falling from her mouth as Pippa brushes her lips gently against hers.

She hums when they press firmer, longer, over and again, until she winds her own fingers in Pippa’s hair and pulls her close, letting her lips part, to kiss her deeply, thoroughly, in the dark of a night shining rainbow and bright with bewitched pumpkins, the two of them moulded to against the trunk of a SilverFir under the safety of a near-full moon. 


End file.
